Interesting thought, and quite possibly very true.

In the case of Prince Caspian though I always thought of it that Caspian himself fulfils that role of "Audience Surrogate" or "Reader Point-of-View" character.

Essentially the story is a mirrored version of LWW, whereby a child from their land learns about the Narnians for the first time, and the Pevensie's are the magical creatures from myth legend, instead of the other way round.

The Walden movie definitely leaned into this notion a lot I felt, from things like opening the movie with Caspian's story, rather than the Pevensie's, and through little details such as having him escape the castle through the wardrobe.

Nice Topic, @col-klink!

Posted by: @icarus

In the case of Prince Caspian though I always thought of it that Caspian himself fulfils that role of "Audience Surrogate" or "Reader Point-of-View" character.

I agree. Even though Caspian isn't "new" to Narnia, he is born into a Narnia that is ruled by the Telmarines. He hasn't seen talking animals, dwarfs, or Aslan. Metaphorically, that's not Narnia. 

I never noticed that The Last Battle had no new characters to introduce. Maybe this is because by the end of the book, every character is introduced into Aslan's country, a new world for all of them. Or maybe it's because Lewis didn't want to introduce a character into Narnia, who would obviously, after LB never see it again. It could also be because in LB, Narnia becomes so flawed, a new character would never see Narnia as the beautiful, pure country that it really is. 

-KingEdTheJust

There's something I never thought of.

If Prince Caspian and The Last Battle have anything else in common, it would be that Narnia is being taken over by other nations (Telmarines and Calormenes). Also, both tend to take the name of Aslan out (Miraz dismissing the stories of the old days as being just fairly tales and Rishda not believing in neither Aslan nor Tash).

Very good point, Col Klink. I think Jasmine brings up a good point, though: both of these stories involve invaders trying to stamp out the name of Aslan (and, by extension, old stories about the High Kings and Queens, etc.). In that context, it makes more sense to use characters who already know these stories, and who basically have their core beliefs challenged, rather than challenging the faith of a character who is just learning about them.

Then again, Silver Chair also involves a plot about trust and faith, and Jill is an "initiate". I do think it's different, though, because Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum more or less have to decide if they'll trust Aslan's present and future instructions, rather than his history.

On a side note, PC and TLB are personally my least favorite books, and I've been chalking it up to those two books being the least "wondrous" (at least until the end), and having the most "ordinary" conflicts. Perhaps that also has something to do with why there is no "initiate" character, but I don't think so. After all, in VDT, Edmund and Lucy are Narnia "veterans", and they still discover a lot of places and creatures they'd never seen before. Eustace isn't strictly necessary for a sense of discovery.

Well, there are times that I feel like that The Last Battle didn't need to have a villain. While Shift is a good villain, I felt he's a little too simplistic. It's mainly about for Narnians, where their loyalties lie. Yet another thought, why didn't CS Lewis make Rishda the villain? He could have been a Prince Rabadash or even a Miraz type villain. I think that would've been more interesting, if Shift was actually working for Rishda all this time.

As for Prince Caspian and The Last Battle having anything in common, another would be they are taken from different perspective than most. Some of Prince Caspian is from Caspian's perspective and most of The Last Battle is from Tirian's perspective.

Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

Yet another thought, why didn't CS Lewis make Rishda the villain?

Wait. I'm confused. How is Rishda not a villain? 

Maybe you mean he's not the sole villain, there being several of them in The Last Battle. I don't have a problem with that. Maybe you feel that it's better to have one bad guy you can fully develop than several you don't have the space to fully develop. 

Posted by: @col-klink

Wait. I'm confused. How is Rishda not a villain? 

Maybe you mean he's not the sole villain, there being several of them in The Last Battle. I don't have a problem with that. Maybe you feel that it's better to have one bad guy you can fully develop than several you don't have the space to fully develop. 

He is a villain in a way, but he's not the main antagonist. Shift is the main antagonist of the story. While in other stories, it's true you have the Dwarf and Maugrim or Fenris Ulf (depending of what version you've read) and Nikkabrik as the villains, but they're not the main antagonists.

I think my reason for being is that Shift does have villainous moments, but when he takes to drinking, it almost kind of loses interest for me. Most villains when they take over a country, they become more interesting. Not so with Shift.

Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

He is a villain in a way, but he's not the main antagonist. Shift is the main antagonist of the story.

Well, Rishda and Ginger are working with Shift and it's an equal partnership, so I'd say they're all co-villains. 

@col-klink 

Ah, point taken. We could probably say the same for Maugrim and the dwarf that are working with the White Witch or even the Tisroc working closely with Prince Rabadash.

If there's anything else that Prince Caspian and The Last Battle in common, I guess it would be that they each had co-villains, though I think that Glozelle and Sospesian are hardly villains, since they're not all that loyal to Miraz.

I think both books bite off more than they can chew. Lewis was at his best when writing the personal and up close. Like thre experiences of Shasta in HHB, Lucy in VoTDW, Polly and Digory in MN. When he tries to go epic, with multiple viewpoints, he loses that focus and meanders around. Actually, that's how I would describe both books -- meandering. In PC the Pevensies meander around the ruins of Cair Paravel and then an overgrown forest, accomplishing nothing, and Caspian also meanders around after running away from Miraz, accomplishing nothing. In LB Tirian, Jill, Eustace meander around in a forest after they meet, having little victories which are negated by the villains. The plot doesn't *move* until the last chapters of both books. The effect is of stagnation. Which is a life lesson in itself, I guess, but not fun to read about, which is why these two books, except for certain scenes, are at the bottom of my list too.

If I could rewrite PC, I would have the Pevensies flash into Narnia, realize the ruins are Cair Paravel, then encounter Caspian instead of Trumpkin, who explains his situation to them, then they search out the remaining Narnias having adventures along the way.